As Pittsburgh Mayor Corey O’Connor led a cadre of city officials on a walk through Downtown on Tuesday afternoon, he stopped every few blocks to point out something that could be improved.
An old sign needed to be taken town. A sunken crosswalk should be fixed. Spray paint markings that denoted where construction work had been done should be cleaned away. Sidewalks should be pressure washed. Graffiti needed to be scrubbed off.
“We are paying attention to the details,” the new mayor said. “We want you to feel the city’s taken care of.”
O’Connor said he plans to do similar tours of business districts in neighborhoods around the city. The goal, he said, is to look for improvements that make key corridors feel safer and cleaner.
O’Connor — the son of the late Mayor Bob O’Connor — said the effort is somewhat akin to his father’s “redd up” campaign to clean up the city.
His vision for Downtown goes beyond just cleanliness. He also has advocated for more businesses and housing in the area.
On Smithfield Street, he paused with Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership President Jeremy Waldrup to discuss how street trees, landscaping and more businesses could spruce up the area.
“This is just screaming for redevelopment,” Waldrup said.
During Tuesday’s walking tour, O’Connor paused in the middle of the Boulevard of the Allies and laid out a vision for reimaging the boulevard. Right now, he said, the six-lane configuration feels like a highway in the heart of Downtown.
O’Connor wants to narrow the road and add art and green infrastructure.
“We want this to be a welcoming neighborhood again,” he said. “This should not feel like a highway in the middle of your city.”
The walking tour trekked by several vape shops. O’Connor said officials can’t do much about the vape shops already scattered throughout the business district, but he’s supportive of a bill that would limit where new ones could open.
Councilman Bobby Wilson, D-North Side, sponsored the measure, which would keep vape shops from cropping up too close to schools, day cares and other vape shops.
Vape shops, Wilson said, can be a “big contributor to nuisance activity.”
O’Connor said officials also need to ensure they’re enforcing rules already on the books, like those governing signage and allowing officials to address nuisance properties.
Sheldon Williams, O’Connor’s nominee to head the Department of Public Safety, said he wants to bring “multiple layers of enforcement,” including a preventative approach, in an effort to prevent problems from arising.
“We don’t want to have any opportunities to breed problems and then we have to play catch-up,” he told TribLive.
O’Connor also told reporters he was looking to create a revolving loan fund that would fill financing gaps for development Downtown. It could support housing, new businesses and building renovations, he said.
“Downtown is the heart of our region,” O’Connor said. “This is why it’s so important to clean up.”